Superpower: How to Think, Act, and Perform with Less Effort and Better Results

Chapter 19

Innovation Insights

There's a great story I've heard about the Apollo space flights from the 1960s. Apparently, during one of their trips to the moon, the astronauts were off course 98 percent of the time. Fortunately, they went through multiple course corrections and had good enough feedback systems to actually hit the target of landing on the moon. And by the way, they did that with far, far less technology than you have in your iPhone. Actually, they did it with less computing power than is needed now to run a greeting card that plays a song when you open it.

Or consider the example of a plane flying from New York to Los Angeles: If it's off by only half of a percent, that translates to being 600 miles off course from the destination. You need measurements to make sure that you're on track, and you need the feedback loop set up to get you the information that ensures your success. Very often, the right course correction requires something I refer to as innovation insight.

Innovation insight means finding brand-new ways of accomplishing the task you have set out for yourself. In other words, maybe the old tried-and-true ways may not work for you. Maybe you need to be a little more creative and innovative about what success looks like and how you're going to get there. For example, if I say I want to lose 25 pounds and I want to run three miles a day, eat only 1,200 calories, and join the YMCA, those are all tasks and to-dos. But if I want to get more creative, I might ...